S.C. Candidate Challenges Status Quo

Published: June 9, 2010

COLUMBIA, S.C. — As she entered the top-floor suite of a luxurious office building here late Tuesday, Nikki Haley passed an oil painting of nine former South Carolina governors. All were men, all were white, seated behind a long table like a political version of “The Last Supper.”

Rich Glickstein/The State, via Associated Press

Rallying Point

Nikki Haley: Runoff Candidate for the Republican Nomination for Governor of South Carolina

In a state
wearied by sex scandal,
support from Tea Party
groups, Sarah Palin and
Jenny Sanford, the exwife
of the governor,
helped Ms. Haley overcome
accusations of her
own infidelity (which she
denied). She faces Representative
J. Gresham
Barrett in a June 22 runoff.
The winner will face
State Senator Vincent
Sheheen in November.

If she can maintain her momentum, Ms. Haley will make a most unlikely member of the club.

On Tuesday, Ms. Haley, a 38-year-old Indian-American state representative with strong ties to the Tea Party movement, emerged as the front-runner to become the next governor of South Carolina. Winning 49 percent of the votes in the Republican primary, she trounced three white male rivals with longer careers, higher titles and larger bank accounts, although she fell just short of avoiding a runoff with the second-place finisher, Representative J. Gresham Barrett.

The outcome of her long-shot candidacy made her an instant hero of Tea Partiers across the country. And it moved a relative newcomer within sight of a historic and audacious achievement: becoming the first woman and the first member of a racial minority to be elected governor of a state often viewed as the cradle of good ol’ boy politics.

“South Carolina showed that it’s going in a different direction,” Ms. Haley told a group of reporters and diners on Wednesday over pulled pork and boiled peanuts in suburban Lexington. “I want to get the voice out to the nation that we are a great state with great people that make good decisions.”

All that stands between her and the palmetto-lined Governor’s Mansion — not insignificantly — is the June 22 runoff against Mr. Barrett and the general election in November. The Democratic nominee, Vincent Sheheen, faces a steep uphill battle in the reliably conservative state.

“If she wins, she becomes a superstar in South Carolina politics and has huge potential for national media attention,” said Merle Black, an expert in Southern politics at Emory University.

Already national Republican leaders are heralding Ms. Haley as the presumptive nominee and likely next governor.

“The voters of South Carolina made a clear choice in Nikki Haley, notwithstanding the possibility of a runoff,” said Nick Ayers, the executive director of the Republican Governors Association, in a statement that did not mention Mr. Barrett. “The outcome is all but certain.”

Rebecca Wales, a spokesman for Smart Girl Politics, a nonprofit group that supports conservative female politicians, said Ms. Haley was a welcome addition to the Tea Party roster.

Though Ms. Haley does not consider herself “the Tea Party candidate,” she has received support from the movement throughout most of her yearlong campaign.

Ms. Haley, who has been married for 13 years and has two young children, was born in the small town of Bamberg, in central South Carolina, to Sikh parents who emigrated from India. Beginning at age 13, she said, she worked after school at her parents’ clothing store. She earned an accounting degree from Clemson University, then helped turn her family’s business into a multimillion-dollar operation, according to her campaign.

Ms. Haley first ran for office in 2004, narrowly defeating a Republican incumbent she said was ineffective and unresponsive to voters. In the Legislature, she kept a relatively low profile, but earned a reputation as a reformer and fiscal conservative.

Ms. Haley says she represents a step toward transparency (she introduced legislation requiring lawmakers to reveal more of their votes on key issues) and away from insularity (“good ol’ boy network” is a favorite epithet of her campaign staff).